What is the ideal number of cities?

[GGitchell]

What is the ideal number of cities for playing on a huge map. Also age by age how many cities doe you want to have. Also does pursuing different types of victory conditions have an affect on the ideal number of cities? Would their be a different ideal number of cities going for a space race victory than a conquest or cultural?

 

[vman]

This is a great question - I'm inclined to answer 'the more the merrier', as long as you can defend them adequately. Unlike PC civ games like CIV IV, III, etc. - you don't get this empire penalty that drags your economy to a halt every time you start a new city. So, expand, expand, expand! It all goes towards your larger economy, science, and culture production, right?

 

[Terrapin]

Yup. With no riot factor or unit support cost, there is no real reason to stop expanding. One thing to be careful of, however, is that later in the game (when the ai/other players will have built temples and some cathedrals), a new city which is closer to another civ than your own is apt to get culture flipped.

 

[Kadazzle]

The OP's question was in reference to Civ IV, as you can't choose the map size in Civ Rev.

For Civ IV, try to get as many cities that your economy can hold. A general rule is to try and not let your research % drop below 50%, but that can often be mis-leading, as the research % doesn't matter as much as the science beakers per turn does.

It'd be great if a Mod could move this to the Civ IV section.

 

[bonafide11]

Yeah, in Civ IV, be careful not to out expand your economy. In Civ Rev, since there is no maintenance cost, the more cities, the merrier, but make sure you're able to defend them.

 

[PiMan]

The only thing that makes this game worse than Civ1 for ICS (infinite city sprawl), is lack of space due to smaller maps. Beyond that, all the important conditions favour ICS for CivRev or they are roughly equal.

 

[bonafide11]

The only thing that makes this game worse than Civ1 for ICS (infinite city sprawl), is lack of space due to smaller maps. Beyond that, all the important conditions favour ICS for CivRev or they are roughly equal.

To an extent, I agree, but I think in late game you're better off using democracy than republic, and the -2 population really hurts your cities' growth. So in late game, I tend to stop building more cities, and just concentrate on the ones I have.

 

[GGitchell]

Sorry about this, I accidentally put this in the wrong place. I really meant to put it in the Civ 4 section.